An Aperture
by Clarra-Night
Summary: "Usually people try capture what they want to remember." Small one-shot about a camera.


**Set post-TDW, pre-Age of Ultron.**

* * *

Jane was tidying her study.

However, it seemed she was merely moving piles of clutter from one place to another, so she could replace them with other piles of clutter. This tweaked up the corner of Thor's mouth as he watched her from the open doorway. He watched her linger over a certain piece of her equipment – a small box of black plastic, covered with tiny gleaming buttons and runes.

"What is that?" Thor asked.

He had not encountered an electricity-powered gadget of this size so far. It was like a miniature, much simpler version of some computers he had seen with S.H.I.E.L.D., Stark or in Jane's observatory.

"It's a camera." Jane gave a slight start when he spoke behind her, but smiled at his curiosity. She stepped closer to place the dark chunk of plastic in his calloused hands for his inspection. "See, this is where you look through, and this is the lens that should face what you want to photograph – "

"Photograph?"

"That's the name of the picture that's captured by the camera when you click this button." She tapped a little silver circle on the corner. "Then you can print it out on special paper or keep it on a computer."

He toyed with it a little, wishing to try a few of the little buttons but not wanting to accidentally delete any of the data Jane might be keeping in it.

"Darcy used the camera application on her phone to photograph you once, when you first came to New Mexico, remember?" Jane grinned with the memory. Thor grinned back.

"Do you have any photographs, Jane?"

"Oh, tonnes. Most of them are of constellations, or distant planets, or meteor showers, but they just look like dust on black paper and I use a much more advanced camera for those, but I use this one for friends and family… "

"So you photograph things you deem special?"

"Absolutely. Well, some people take photos of themselves over and over again, and I don't think they're necessarily self-important, but usually people try capture what they want to remember."

Thor handed the camera back to her. Interesting device. "But you would remember all what's important to you, even without these extra images of them."

Jane paused. Her smile softened a little. "Yes, of course."

With that, she switched on the contraption, the lid over the lens sliding back like a single eye opening. Thor smiled as she raised the camera to him and pressed the little silver button.

"What would you photograph, if you had a camera?" Jane asked, after she had shown him the preserved depiction of his face on the camera's rectangular screen. She looked up at him shrewdly, as was her habit when trying to decipher something. Thor knew that was only habit. He was not mysterious.

"Family and friends."

He had many of the latter, but those he could most easily imagine photographing he could count on his fingers.

"Lady Sif, Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg, maybe even Heimdall," Thor chuckled.

He continued, "Father, though I cannot envision him allowing a photo… And then Mother, of course, if she were… Were…"

He fell quiet. He had to swallow.

Jane squeezed his hand, hers small but firm around his. "You could never forget them anyway, Thor," she prompted him. How he needed her especially now.

"And…"

Because he could not finish that short list. Jane's lip trembled.

("And Loki, of course," she finished for him gently)

Because Thor could see them. Frigga and Odin, in his mind, and he could remember what they looked like when they were smiling. Happy. At peace.

He could not really pinpoint the last time he had seen Loki at peace. And he might never again.

The last he had seen of his brother, his own little brother, was Loki dying in his arms and promising that he was sorry.

(And that _I didn't do it for him_ )

Thor would not forget that, no matter how hard he tried replace it with memories of Loki smiling, Loki laughing, Loki safe, Loki _happy_ , because he could not even recall now when that last was.

Jane's hand shook around his.

Thor sighed. He touched the little silver button on her camera.

"I wish... I had owned a camera, before," was all he could say.


End file.
